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Brazil Struggling

With Brazil dogged by drought, a sluggish economy and a corruption scandal at its most important company, businesses in Latin America’s largest economy have little to be optimistic about, NewsNow reported. Economists expect Brazil’s gross domestic product to contract 1.18% this year and growth of just 1% in 2016. Federal prosecutors are in the midst of an investigation involving hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly skimmed from Brazil’s state-run oil giant, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, by the country’s top construction companies. A multiyear drought is threatening water supplies in Sao Paulo state, which accounts for 40% of Brazil’s industrial production. All that makes this a fraught time for business in Brazil, which, fueled by a commodities boom, reached 7.6% economic growth in 2010 but has been slowing ever since. Amid bad news and uncertainty, the hope that the country would become an economic superpower has fizzled. Executives and investors say sentiment about Brazilian business inside and outside the country is the lowest it has been in years.